TITLE: Hippos
AUTHOR: I don't wanna admit to it...
KEYWORDS: humor? You tell me.
SPOILERS: None! But I dare ya to find the Bree Sharp reference.
SUMMARY: The Gunmen 'overhear' an interesting conversation... it's Ashley-safe.
DISCLAIMER: I am Chris. I made this. Give me feedbck. (I dunno.)
ARCHIVE: snort
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Don't ask. I don't know. It just...came to me. Maybe I should just get back to JAD and stop wasting your time on this crud.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ****
"'Hey, Scully, how do you spell hippopotomonstrosesquippadahliaphobia?'"
"'What did you say?'"
"'I said, how do you spell hippopotomonstrasesquippadahliaphobia?'"
"'That's what I thought you said.'"
Langly bit back a grin; thy were so cute when they were like this.
"'So?'"
"'So what?'"
"'So how do you spell hippopotomonst-'"
"'I don't know.'"
He was cut off by Scully's short reply.
Frohike whacked Langly in the shoulder, "Hey, it's my turn! Stop hogging the headphones!"
Langly waved him off, "in a minute, I'm listening to this."
Byers sat in the furthest corner, shaking his head at them in disgust.
"I can't believe you guys are invading their privacy like this. You should be ashamed of yourselves."
His comment went ignored by the other two gunmen, who were busy fighting over the pair of headphones.
"It's my turn," insisted Frohike, still jostling Langly, who turned to him in frustration, pulling off the headphones violently, "for god's sake, Frohike, you made me miss half the conversation! Here you are, enjoy."
He got up and stomped over to the other side of the room, joining Byers, who simply rolled his eyes at him.
"'Look Mulder, for the last time, I do not know how to spell that word, okay? Why the hell do you want to know that for, anyway?'"
Frohike grinned, he liked it when Scully was angry.
"'Would you believe curiosity?'" Mulder's voice was purposefully irritating; he was trying to get a rise out of his partner, and seemed to be succeeding.
Meanwhile, Byers and Langly were having their own mini argument.
"Look, why don't you just take out the headphones lead and put it on speaker?"
Langly gave him an exasperated look, "that's what *I* suggested, but you said you didn't want to hear it. You said it went against your principles."
"Yeah, maybe I did, but you two are really starting to annoy me."
Langly stuck his tongue out at his fellow gunman.
"Oh, you are pathetic."
"I'm pathetic? I'm not the one who is tying to be Mr Principles here, but doesn't hesitate to list-"
"Give it a rest, okay? I was just saying that when Mulder and Scully find out, they are going to kill us. Scully especially."
"Will you two please shut up! I'm trying to listen to some pure, unadulterated, sexual tension here!"
Langly and Byers exchanged a look.
"'I don't believe you, Mulder. Not even you are sad enough to... oh, what's the point. Wait, what *is* hippopotowhatever anyway?'"
"'Fear of long words.'"
Silence.
"'I'm serious! Hippopotomonstrosesquippadahliaphobia is fear of long words.'"
"'You really do hoard the most useless of information, you know that?'"
"'Photographic memory.'"
"'So how come you can't remember the spelling?'"
"'Dyslexia?'"
Another silence. Presumably, he was getting the Scully-glare.
"'Okay, not dyslexia. I don't know, I just don't remember how to spell it! Is that a crime?'"
"'Am I being paranoid, or are you actually *trying* to annoy me?"'
Frohike laughed, he could really picture the look on Scully's face right now.
"' Now why would I do a thing like that?'"
"'Because you are incredibly stupid and have a death wish.'"
Langly couldn't take it any more. The look of amusement on the little troll's face was more than he could bear.
"What's going on?" He got up and started hovering over Frohike's shoulder.
"They're still arguing. She just called him incredibly stupid."
Even Byers couldn't resist smiling a little at this. He still thought they were making a big mistake by setting up this little bug, but the two partners were very entertaining sometimes.
Langly didn't see the harm in this 'harmless little device,' as he had called it earlier that week, when he came up with the idea of bugging their office.
"'God, Mulder, act your age. And will you please stop tapping your finger on that desk? It's starting to get irritating.'"
Frohike could sympathise, it annoyed him too.
"'I've been doing this for six years. It annoys you now?'"
"'It's always annoyed me, I've just tried to tolerate it.'"
A rapid tapping noise could be heard through the headphones.
"'MULDER!'"
Frohike winced. That had gone right through him.
"What now?" Langly wanted to know.
"She's hot when she's mad."
Byers could stand it no longer, "Oh for Pete's sake, will you just please let us all listen?"
Langly looked at him amused, "oh, *now* you wanna play."
Frohike waved a hand at them, telling them to shut up, and pulled out the headphones.
Scully's exasperated voice filled the room.
"Mulder if you don't stop that noise right now, I'm going to come over there and make you stop it."
"How you gonna do that?"
The tapping could still be heard, and Byers pulled up a chair in resignation. "If you can't beat em, join em," he muttered.
"'Oh that is it.'"
The gunmen heard a soft 'thud,' and winced simultaneously.
"'OW! That *hurt*!'"
"'So stop tapping your damn finger!"'
"Well if you weren't so vicious..."
"'I am not vicious!'"
"'You just threw a hole punch at me! I interpret that as viciousness!"
The gunmen all started laughing at the image of Scully hurling a hole punch at her astonished partner.
"Y'know, we should sell this," commented Langly.
"Nah, why not just wait until we install one in Scully's bedroom."
Byers and Langly gave Frohike a filthy look.
"I was kidding!"
Langly turned his attention back to the action in the office.
"'It was your own fault.'"
Scully's voice had calmed down considerably.
"'For moving a part of my body?'"
"'People have been hung for less, Mulder. Especially where body parts are involved.'"
A short pause.
"'You just have to put the conversation into the gutter, don't you?'"
"'Excuse me? This coming from the man who manages to make a filthy comment about anything and everything?'"
"'I do not!'"
"'You might not always say it, Mulder, but you think it.'"
"'So what, are you a mind reader now?'"
"'No, but I can read you like a book.'"
"But what kind of book?" Langly wondered aloud.
Byers rolled his eyes at him.
"A trashy book," muttered Frohike with a grin.
"'Oh? So what am I thinking now?'"
A longer pause.
"'Any more thoughts like that and you'll have more than a hole punch thrown at you.'"
Scully's voice was deadpan, but they could tell she was smiling as she said it.
"'You're no fun,'" Mulder said in a sulky way.
There was silence for a while, and the gunmen began to think about getting back to doing some work, when a quiet mutter could be heard.
"'H - I - P - P - O - P - O - T - O - M - O - N - S - T - R - O - S'"
"'What are you doing?'"
"'Trying to work out how to spell hipp-'"
"'Can't you do it in your head?'" she cut him off mid-word.
"'No.'"
More silence.
"'E - S - Q - Any idea what comes next?'"
"'F - U - C - K - O - F - F. Did that help?'"
"'Very funny.'"
Frohike, for one, did find it very funny, and started to laugh, only to be whacked from both sides from Byers and Langly, who were still trying to listen.
Byers had long ago given up on his morality. This was too much fun.
"'Well, I already told you that I don't know how to spell it, and that means I Don't. Know. How. To. Spell it. Happy?'"
"'I - T"
"What?"
"That's how you spell it. I - T"
"'Oh, so you're reduced to 100 year old jokes now, are you? If you need pathetic things like that to win points-"
"'This isn't about winning points.'"
Mulder actually sounded remotely hurt.
"'Oh really?"
"'Really."
"Are they like this all the time?"
"I hope not. Think of what we've been missing if they are," replied Langly, considering bugging both their homes.
"Mulder, sometimes you are so annoying.'"
"'I am not!'"
"'Fine. Whatever.'"
"'Don't start that again.'"
"'Start what again?'"
"Sure, fine. Whatever."
Mulder said this in a falsetto voice, which was a bit too convincing. Even Byers grinned.
"I didn't say that. I only said, fine whatever. There was no sure.'"
"'Now who's being pathetic.'"
There was silence for a while, yet again, and Frohike started to lose interest.
"This actually gets boring after a while. They just seem to be repeating themselves."
"The entertainment isn't up to Sir's standards?" asked Byers sarcastically.
"Oh, quit being all high and mighty, okay? If you objected to this so much, you would have gone into the next room instead of sitting here and listening with us."
Langly interrupted this, not wanting it to turn into another argument, "Shut up, the two of you, can we please just drop it? We should just turn this off, and the first chance we get, take out the bug. Okay?"
"But-" objected Frohike.
"No buts. As Byers said, they will kill us, *kill* us if they find out. So it's best if they just don't find out, and the best way off assuring this is to take it out as soon as possible."
"I agree," agreed Byers, glad to see that someone was finally seeing it from his point of view.
Frohike opened his mouth, to argue, but never got the chance, as a sound was heard from Mulder.
"'U - I - P - P'"
A strangled scream, obviously from Scully, came, and then a louder thud, followed by an even louder thud.
The sounds, in fact, of a very large and heavy object being hurled at someone, and then the sound of that someone falling off their chair.
"'Mulder?'"
She sounded worried.
The gunmen sat up, suddenly not finding this as funny.
"'Mulder? Can you speak?'"
There was a pause, in which Frohike started to nervously bite his nail.
"Aw, screw it."
A sigh.
"I'm sure I'll regret that when I'm sober. Or when the case comes to court. Whatever happens first."
The sound of a chair being pulled up, and then nothing.
The three lone gunmen looked at each other nervously, and then shot up out of their chairs, headed for the door.
"We should go see if she just did what we think she just did."
"Surely the judge will see it as manslaughter?"
"Temporary insanity?" suggested Byers.
"Nah, she had to be insane to work with him for 6 years anyway."
The door slammed shut, and from the listening device, a sound could be heard.
The sound of Mulder and Scully bursting into hysterical laughter.
"Mulder - Mulder," she had trouble getting the words out, she was laughing that hard.
"How did you know?"
"I heard them planning it."
Scully tried to contain her giggles, without much success, "They're gonna kill us."
"They started it. Besides, as I always say, if you can't beat em, join em."
"When do you always say that?"
"Do you have to take everything so literally?"
"Only when you invite it"
"A - D - A - H - L - I"
"MULDER!"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Yeah, yeah, pointless, I know. But it's my first fic with no MSR and no UST! Whoo! Ashley, you must be so proud.
*sniff*
I'll go finish Just A Dream now.
I'd rather be liberated,
I find myself captivated,
Stop doin what you,
Keep doin it to,
Catatonia - Mulder & Scully.
Bella Tricks? Trix? ???
My history teacher: "Try and bend the truth"
Me and my mate: "Ouch."